Ganymede (Clockwork Century)

by Cherie Priest

  “That’s what they’re saying.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone else so big that others would follow him. Nobody but Lafitte, and he’s dead—and so are half his grandchildren, or rotting in jail.”

  Deaderick uncrossed his arms and scratched at a sore spot where a bullet wound was healing, and itching. “I’d like to see the pirates reestablish themselves, myself. They took better care of me than they had to, when I was tore up during the raid. But fellows, I believe the conversation has gotten off course again.”

  Cly said, “You’re right, you’re right.” Then he rattled off the coordinates they’d agreed to—the ones about twenty miles into the Gulf, where Admiral Herman Partridge was waiting on the warship Valiant … until morning, and no longer.

  “How long do you think this will take?” Houjin asked. “It’s a long way, isn’t it? How far are we going?”

  “All told? Sixty, maybe seventy miles. And you’ll be right behind us with more fuel, won’t you?” he asked Deaderick and Rucker.

  “Right on top of you,” Rucker confirmed. “Literally, sometimes. We’re sneaking the diesel in sealed tubs covered in shrimping nets. And we’ve got a hose all strapped up and ready to deploy.”

  “But we can’t do it while you’re underwater. You’ll have to break surface for us to refuel you. That’ll be the most dangerous part,” Deaderick said with deepening seriousness. “One of the things we’re hoping to change on future models of this thing—is we’d like to see it take on more fuel without breaching.”

  “I sure as hell hope they do keep us around, so we can make some suggestions on those future models,” piped up Wallace Mumler, who’d been leaning against a wall and smoking quietly as the conversation carried on.

  Chester Fishwick, who’d come in late but now stood beside Wallace, agreed. “I’d like the chance to work on the ships they’ll build after this one. I’m all full up on ideas—ways they could make it better. Ways it could run cleaner, and longer.”

  Cly lifted his head to direct his next question at the pair of them. “Speaking of running longer, how far can we expect to get on one full tank?”

  No one answered right away, but Chester took a stab at a reply. “Twenty-five or thirty miles, or that’s our best guess. It’s hard to say, once you’re out in the current. It’ll help you, but we don’t know how much. Maybe the river will take you an extra mile; maybe she’ll take you an extra ten. Keep your eye on the fuel gauge, that’s my advice. And give us a signal before you’re ready for more—when you’re down to a couple miles’ worth of juice, we’ll find a spot for you to pull aside real quiet and give you another dose.”

  “Got it.”

  Once more they went over the plan, working in the new particulars—a decided-upon detour at Port Sulphur, establishing estimated stopping points where refueling might be easiest, and alternative possibilities in case of Texians or Rebs. And when it all was pinned down at last, the smallest detail confirmed, all the men took deep breaths and stood up straight. They cracked their backs and their necks, stiff from having leaned over too long, staring at the assortment of maps.

  They stretched their legs and gazed anxiously at the canvas-covered lump of the Ganymede.

  Then Norman Somers and Rucker Little climbed into the big driving machines and started the engines. Deaderick Early and Wallace Mumler opened the double doors at the back side of the warehouse, while the remaining members of the party, except for Cly and his crew, went to stations outside to look out for the trouble that everyone secretly expected.

  But none came.

  Intermittent whistles like birdcalls—prearranged for meaning—chirped through the now-full night, declaring that all was clear and the time was now.

  Hurry. Move it. Out of the warehouse.

  Down to the water, where the big winch waited, having been moved from the bayou to the edge of the river.… There, it had been concealed with saw grass and reeds, and a tuft of false tree canopy that disguised it at a distance.

  Such a disguise was the best they could do. If anyone got close, the illusion would not hold. It could never hide something so large, and so strange. The whole assortment of nervous men prayed that anyone who took more than a second look would assume it was be overgrown dock equipment, left over from the days when people more regularly fished, and fixed boats, and moved cargo from the small bend called New Sarpy.

  First gear was always the hardest when towing something so huge and heavy. The trucks strained against their load, and strained to pull together in perfect time like a pair of mechanical oxen. They moved, crawling inches at a time, but gaining traction and turf; and the conjoined platforms that moved the craft hauled it forward.

  Now the watchers kept their eyes peeled even harder. They scanned using spyglasses that could tell them only so much in the darkness—but alerted them to lanterns, lights, and pedestrians out on the main road. They peered and squinted in every direction, calling soft hoots and the croaks of frogs that all was clear.

  Do it now. Get it out of sight. Get it to the winch.

  Only a few yards separated the warehouse exit from the camouflaged winch, so it took only minutes to move Ganymede from one stopping point to the next. It took only a few terrified clicks of Wallace Mumler’s watch for the craft to be affixed to the hooks at the top of the winch, and a few more for the dark-clothed men to move like shadows performing a dance, hitching the craft and swinging it over the water on a long, straining arm that could scarcely hold its weight.

  Its bottom hit the water with a splash that sloshed a wave onto shore, soaking the legs of the men who stood nearby. They’d picked this place partly because there, the river was deeper than it looked, and would be an easy spot to launch from.

  While the winch adjusted its position, the men who weren’t directly operating it went scampering along the banks, removing vegetation to reveal small engine-powered boats. They were the boats of poor people, half-cobbled things held together with pitch and elbow grease, and a dab of spit. They were boats no one would look at twice, for the river was crowded with them—mostly run by older men who took to the water in search of night-blind food, or lazy companionship, toting their nets, poles, and shellfish traps.

  The men in the dinghies got bored enough that they served as a network of sorts, passing gossip and news back and forth across the water almost as swiftly as the taps could carry it. They were spies of another sort, watching the world for signs of change or progress. For a few pence in the palm, they’d help the rum-runners or the blight smugglers, the cargo handlers and the crawdad scrapers.

  But not the Texians.

  Not one of the boatmen would’ve lifted a finger to share gossip with the occupiers, and the handful of men who knew what was passing downriver kept the knowledge to themselves—or spread it to others like themselves, so that the Ganymede and its attendants wouldn’t be bothered.

  Which was for the best, because there was no muffling the chains as they clanked and grinded, lowering Ganymede into the water. Everyone listened, terrified and tense, ears alert for warnings called from the watchmen beyond the warehouse. But nothing came, except the hoots and grunts that said all was well, and to continue.

  So they did.

  And when the ship was more in the water than out of it, the chains were released and it dunked itself, throwing up another sloppy wave. It bobbed, its entry hatch remaining above the waterline, but ducking and leaning, then stabilizing.

  Norman Somers and Andan Cly used a pair of hooked poles to latch the craft to a set of pier posts, which had been driven deeply into the mud. These two men, the largest and strongest present, wrestled with the weight of the craft and nearly—for one horrifying cycle of waves slapping and watchers calling “still safe” in their bird cries—let it slip away from them. But they caught it, and hooked it into place as if they were tying an enormous horse to a pair of hitching posts.

  Now the ship was more hidden than visible, the bulk of its shape concealed by the shimmering
black water.

  “The winch,” Deaderick whispered fiercely. “Put it up. Get it away.”

  Again the men moved like clockwork, each one to a task, each one knowing exactly where to place each foot, twist each knob, unfasten each support. Soon the winch was teetering, and then it fell into the water, as planned.

  Deaderick instructed them in his stern, low voice, “Cover it up. Sink it. Leave it in the mud.”

  This happened wordlessly, promptly. Completely. Their success would not be assured until the sun rose again, but it would suffice for now. The lanterns showed nothing beneath the surface but a roiling bubble of silt washed up by the heavy winch settling on the bottom.

  It would do.

  “Inside,” Deaderick told them. “Hurry.”

  Hurry was the word of the hour, and they all obeyed it.

  Cly stepped into the river on a small raft that’d been pushed into his path to use as a floating stepping-stone. He straddled the raft and the shore, the remarkable span of his legs stretching the distance. “Fang,” he said.

  Fang took Cly’s hand, and, with barely a step upon the captain’s knee, reached the Ganymede’s hatch and opened it—so gently that it did not make even the quietest clank when he set it aside. Immediately behind him came Houjin, moving almost as fast, almost as easily. Fang took the boy’s elbow and tipped him inside, then followed him.

  “Troost, your turn.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Troost grumbled, adjusting the match in his mouth, taking a deep breath, and lunging for the captain’s outstretched hand. He stumbled, caught himself—and Cly held him up, too, keeping him mostly out of the water—and then he was against the craft, clinging to it. He swung his leg over and crawled down the hatch.

  “Early,” Cly called.

  When Deaderick walked over, Wallace Mumler objected, saying, “Wait. No. You’re not healed up. Not yet.”

  “No one else knows that thing as well as I do. No one else knows it in and out, all the weapons systems and all the bailing systems.”

  “I do, almost,” Mumler argued. “And I know the electrics even better than you, I bet.”

  “Then you come, too, if you’re willing. The pair of us, me and you—and these fellows. We’ll get it down the river. Norman can take over your pole boat, can’t he? Norman?”

  “I can take it, Rick.”

  “Good. Take Wally’s pole-craft, and you,” he said to Mumler, “get inside. Come on, if you’re coming.”

  Wallace looked at Ganymede, and looked at his leader. “All right, then. Me and you.”

  “Go in, get in. You’ll need less help than I will, with me in this shape. Not that it’s as bad as you think,” he added before Mumler could protest any further.

  Cly came last. He leaned, stepped off the raft, and stuck to the side of Ganymede, hanging there. Before he climbed in, he looked over at the few assembled men who weren’t on lookout duty, and said, “We’re counting on you fellows, you know that, right? We can’t make this work without you. We’ll drown down here, if you don’t keep us moving.”

  Rucker Little, now essentially in charge along with Chester Fishwick, nodded from the bank. “We’re coming. We won’t let you scuttle her by accident, we can promise you that. You do your job; we’ll do ours.”

  Cly gave them a nod and a small parting salute as he flipped his leg over the hatch’s round entrance and disappeared down inside it.

  He drew the lid shut behind him, settling it as tightly as he could against the seal, then drawing the wheel hard to the right to compress that seal, and lock them all dry inside. As he did so, he felt a strange vacuum settle and he recognized it—he knew it from years of gas masks sucking themselves into position against his face, and from the layers of filters and seals that preserved Seattle’s underground. He knew the feel of it, but here, somehow, it felt more sinister.

  In the underground, up above there was only a street—only a city filled with poison air. But that poison air could be cleaned. No one would drown in the street. All it took was a mask to make the city navigable, never mind the rotters and the blinding clots of fog.

  But not here.

  Not in the water, where once the ship had been lowered, there was nothing above, nothing outside, nothing touching it but the suffocating weight of liquid.

  In the previous days, it’d only been practice—only puttering around the lake and learning the controls. This was different. This was the Great Muddy, Old Man River. This was bigger, or at least longer. And maybe deeper, for all Cly knew. Definitely stronger, moving with its unrelenting current from somewhere up North to somewhere beyond the delta, meeting the ocean west of Florida.

  He ducked down into the main body of the interior, where red, orange, and small gold lights flickered, brightening the interior, but not much. The dimness was necessary, for two reasons.

  First, no one wanted any other craft to take notice of an odd glowing presence beneath the murky waves. And second, if the interior was too bright, the windows would be useless. It was very dark beyond the six-inch-thick glass, but with a small row of encouraging sunset-colored lights mounted externally beneath the watershield—beaming like a tentative smile—it was possible to spy the largest obstacles without being spotted from above.

  They hoped.

  They’d tested it out after dark on Pontchartrain, but the results had been inconclusive. The ship’s visibility depended on too many things—how many other craft were present, what other lights were bouncing, reflecting, shimmering on the surface. They all quietly prayed, or wished, or crossed their fingers inside their pockets … taking it on fervent faith that the small fleet of pontoons, airboats, and skiffs above could hide them.

  “How’s it looking?” Cly asked, taking a sweeping assessment of the room.

  Fang signed with one hand: All ready.

  Deaderick Early was standing by the window, looking out into the swirling mud and dark, dirty water. Without turning around, he said, “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

  Cly said, “Then everyone needs to buckle down, if you can. We’re pushing out into the water, and we don’t know how hard the current’s going to take us. Early? I might recommend that you take a seat there at the window, so you can still serve as underwater lookout. We’re running low on chairs at the moment, but you’ve got handholds there.”

  Wallace Mumler sighed. “Just one more thing we’d like to improve in future models. We don’t need for it to be a luxury steamship in here, or anything like that. But it’d be nice to have extra sitting room for the occasional passenger.”

  Deaderick said, “Agreed, but for now, we’ll work with what we’ve got. Wally, make yourself at home by the low right port, will you?”

  “Already on it, sir.”

  A series of taps on Ganymede’s dome sent the message that the folks up top were ready to serve as guides, this crew of Charon’s helpmates, paddling, pulling, tapping, and running small diesel motors that sounded awfully loud, but weren’t, in the grand scheme of the river’s mumblings. Up above, Cly could hear them starting, one by one. The low putter of the motors and the screw propellers from the two or three antique steam engines designed in miniature … these noises filtered inside, and in the submarine’s belly it all echoed, muted and muffled.

  “Turn down the lights as far as you can—but not so far that they won’t do us any good,” the captain ordered. Houjin went to one concave wall and threw one set of switches; Wallace Mumler reached up and grabbed the other set. With the flickering fizz of electrics dimming, the interior dropped to a low, golden glow.

  The men in their chairs were shapes and shadows, man-sized cutouts of utter black in the charcoal gray of this scene, offset against the wide, bulbous windows that gazed out into the darkness of the river’s underside. But from under the window, the smiling lights glowed, struggling hard against the silt to provide some guide, some illumination.

  Morse code taps bounced down from above.

  “They can see the lights,”
Deaderick said.

  “Yeah, I heard it,” Cly acknowledged. “But we’re not all the way under yet. We’ll shove off and get some depth, and maybe they won’t be quite so clear. That’s what I’m hoping, anyway.”

  More taps. A quickly sent word of readiness.

  Cly took his own seat and strapped himself down. “Engines up, Fang—don’t burn the bottom propeller; we’re still right up against the shore and I don’t want to screw us into the bank. Use the side thrusters above the charge bays. All we need is a nudge.”

  Fang nodded, and his fingers flew across the levers with their knobs and buttons so faintly alight that they could barely be described as such. A hum rose up, accompanied by a curtain of bubbles that brushed by the edges of the huge forward windows.

  “They aren’t synched,” Cly reminded him. The side thrusters were made to steer, not propel. There was no mechanism to make them fire in time with one another.

  Fang didn’t nod this time. He didn’t need to. He needed only to lean his wrists forward, perfectly in tandem, and with a tiny lurch, Ganymede pulled itself away from the bank, away from the sunken winch, and away from the improvised dock at New Sarpy.

  Slowly at first, the ship crawled forward. Then, as soon as the riverbed had dropped away before them, Cly positioned his feet on the depth pump pedals and began the nerve-racking work of letting the craft drop, inch by inch, deeper into the river. At the top of the wide forward windows, a small seam of water sloshed outside, at the level where the craft’s crown hit surface. This jiggling seam of inky water crept higher and higher, until it was gone.

  And at last Ganymede dropped below the waves with one gigantic slurp.

  They were in the river. There was no air except what they had in the compartment, and what would be pumped down every so often to cycle what they breathed.

  It made Cly’s skin crawl, and Kirby Troost’s, too—the captain could see it when he glanced over at the engineer. Troost looked queasy. One arm over his stomach. One hand over the weakly illuminated dial that showed how far down they’d come, and how much farther they could reasonably go.